


the long tail

by atrata



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, Post-Iron Man 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-02 23:21:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4077631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atrata/pseuds/atrata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Dummy would be even worse at board membering than whatshisname, the narcoleptic with the Hawaiian shirts. And anyway, you'd just dilute my shares."</p>
            </blockquote>





	the long tail

**Author's Note:**

> This is something between a missing scene and a coda to IM2, starting after Tony and Pepper kiss on the rooftop and ending shortly before Tony tells Nick Fury he's in "a stable-ish relationship." I got a bug up my ass to write about Pepper during Age of Ultron but it turns out I'm way too much of an obsessive to do that without deconstructing the entire trajectory of their relationship prior to that point, so now this thing exists where they have a lot of sex and argue about stock options. :D? All thanks to [destro](http://archiveofourown.org/users/destronomics) for doing that thing she does and basically making this happen.

***

Tony's not there when she wakes up, and Pepper takes the opportunity to have a low-grade panic attack. It hasn't been long -- it's dark outside, and the sheets are damp with sweat and semen and lube, the scent of sex hanging thick in the air, heavy and cloying. Pepper fists her hands in the sheets and tries to breathe, tries to ignore that twinge in her quads from --

_kneeling over him, her hands curled tight around his shoulders, trying to focus on his face -- his head thrown back, his throat exposed, his mouth open, his eyes closed -- as she slowly lowers herself down, fighting the urge to let go because she's so wet and it'd be so easy to just twist and slide and take him all the way in, but no, no, she's going slowly, drawing it out, feeling every millimeter of his cock as it stretches and fills her and when he's finally all the way inside they both suck in a ragged breath and Pepper tries not to shake apart on top of him as his eyes flutter open and he tips his head down, one corner of his mouth lifting ever so slightly in a grin as he grabs her hips and bends his knees and pushes in even deeper_

\-- and the bruise blooming on her back that's throbbing just a bit when she inhales from when he --

_wraps himself around her, one arm pillowing her head, his fist curling into the sheets, his other hand skimming over her stomach, trailing over her breasts, flicking lightly at her nipples, relentlessly teasing her until she says, "dammit, Tony," and shoves his hand to her clit, takes his two middle fingers and rubs them back and forth, right where she needs them, and she's starting to go to pieces so she hooks her foot around his calf and pulls him closer, his laugh a low rumble against her back, the cold hard edge of the reactor grinding against her spine as his hips move faster and harder and she has to brace herself against the bed and--_

\-- "Shit." Pepper sits up and hugs her knees to her chest. "Jarvis?"

There are a few silent seconds in which she thinks about what she wants to ask Jarvis -- what time is it, where's Tony, what's the death toll from the Expo -- and then she remembers they're still in New York, they're in his family's brownstone, and Jarvis is in Tony's computers and Tony's shop, but they don't spend enough time here for Tony to have uploaded Jarvis into every molecule of material capable of maintaining an electric charge. If she wants the death toll -- does she? -- she'll have to look it up herself. She drops her forehead to her knees with a groan.

She sits very still and tries very hard not to think about what happens in the morning, about the PR nightmare that's still her problem, about more Senate hearings and investigative subcommittees and the 17 scientists in R&D that threatened to quit last week and her appointment with the NYPD to talk about Justin Hammer and--

"Pepper?"

Tony's voice is coming from the doorway, and Pepper freezes, her whole chest constricting to lock the breath out of her lungs, like maybe if she doesn't move, if she doesn't look at him, he won't see her.

"Water," he says, his voice just above a whisper, and she hears footsteps, feels the bed sink under his weight, feels some of the heat from her skin leave in a rush as he holds up an ice-cold glass.

"No, thank you," she says, not looking up, and his swallows seem to echo in the room as he gulps down the water. Then the bed moves, ice clinking against the empty walls of the glass as he rolls over, and there's a dull thud as he puts it on the nightstand.

He rolls back and she can feel him next to her, heat radiating off him, but it's a long time before he lowers his forehead to her shoulder with a soft sigh, his breath hot against her bare skin. Pepper's heart keeps beating faster, faster, and she grinds her teeth and digs her nails into her arms and tries to figure out what's wrong with her without actually thinking about any of it.

She twitches when Tony touches her, when he trails his fingers up her spine, pushes her hair over the other shoulder and says, "Pepper, what's wrong?" She realizes she's shaking. "Come on," he says. "Talk to me."

"Oh," she says, something snapping. She sits upright and whirls, shoves him to his back and climbs on top. "Oh, like you talked to me?" She plants her hands on top of the reactor, throwing the room into relative darkness, even though some light still leaks out from between her fingers. "You were dying." She presses harder. "You were _dying_ , and you wouldn't-- you wouldn't stop, you just kept going out and going out and I asked you, Tony, I _asked_ you and you lied to me, you _lied_ , and--"

He tangles a hand in her hair and pulls her down, puts his open mouth to hers and swallows the rest of her words. Pepper bites down on his bottom lip but kisses him back, licks the taste of water out of his still-cold mouth. She can feel him against her ass, getting hard again, but when he moves to roll them over, she throws out one of her legs and pushes him back down to the mattress. "No," she says, because it can't be like this, he can't just kiss her every time she says something he doesn't want to hear. "No." She nips at his jaw, her teeth raking against his stubble, tugging lightly on a bit of skin as she sits up and reaches back to wrap a hand around his dick.

Tony responds instantly, one sharp inhalation before his face relaxes into that slight open-mouthed smile and he starts rocking up into her hand as she strokes him all the way hard. His hands are on her legs, moving constantly, rough fingers learning the feel of her, like tomorrow he'll create a perfect hologram from memory. His eyes never leave her face, cataloguing every reaction as his blunt nails rake across the soft skin of her inner thighs and a thumb finds her clit. "No," she says again, too sensitive from earlier, and she pulls away, still stroking him, her free hand fumbling for the strip of condoms she knows are nearby. Tony twists underneath her and finds it instead, and she lays down flat against him, scooting up to give him a little more room to reach around her and roll the condom on. She licks at the sweat gathered in the hollow of his collarbone and writhes against him, rubs her aching nipples against the cooler metal of his reactor. He reaches for the lube, and she feels his slick fingers sliding down between her ass cheeks.

"Mmm, no, better idea," he says before he really gets anywhere, and then he's pushing on her hips, urging her up to kneel over his face. Pepper braces her arms against the headboard and drops her head down just as his tongue sweeps up her slit and back. His hands keep moving, sliding over her ribs, pressing at the notches in her spine, kneading at her ass. He drops his head just enough to blow cool air over her clit before he circles it with his tongue and then starts sucking gently, an almost soothing rhythm, and Pepper feels the pressure start to gather, an increasingly insistent thrum at the base of her spine. Her nipples harden, drawing tight and prickling as desire starts to slam through her body in time with the movement of Tony's mouth. His stubble rasps against the crease of her thighs and he keeps the rhythm steady as he sinks two fingers inside her, her slick flesh parting easily as he finger-fucks her.

Tony could probably do this all night but Pepper's not holding back, so he doesn't have to. He sucks a little harder and then changes it a bit, flattens his tongue and grinds it hard and fast on the right side of her clit, his fingers speeding up to match, his pinkie against her asshole, pushing just enough. She moans as the first wave of pleasure breaks over her and Tony doesn't let up, his mouth relentlessly taking her apart. She's still shaking with the aftershocks when he scoots away and grabs her, rolls her underneath him and buries himself inside her in one fast motion. Her body arches and she cries out softly, feeling wrecked, and Tony goes still, his forehead against her own, his ragged breath gusting over her lips. She lifts her head up and licks at his mouth to get a taste of herself before she wraps her legs around him and pulls him deeper.

"Jesus," he breathes, still not moving. "We should've done this years ago."

"No," she says, raking her nails down his back and clenching her muscles around his cock, wanting to make him work for it if he's going to pull out. He grits his teeth and braces against the headboard and proceeds to fuck her through the mattress.

*

It's getting lighter in the room, the purple-gray of an overcast morning leaking around the edges of the curtains, mixing with the glow of Tony's reactor to bathe them in exactly the sort of pre-dawn gloom that makes Pepper wonder what's about to go wrong. She tries not to think about that; there's a lot that can go wrong in the next 24 hours, but at least they're still alive. Death, she hopes, was a hazard of the previous 24 hours, and they have moved on. They're both sprawled on their backs, breathing hard and coated with sweat, and Pepper's big toe brushing against Tony's ankle is the only place their bodies touch.

Pepper keeps trying to get her heart rate down -- she figures it was in the red for at least half an hour, so maybe she won't have to go to the gym on Thursday, not that she has time for that anyway, not anymore, not now that --

"Are you--" he says at the same time she blurts out, "You were right."

"What?" he asks. She's caught him off-guard, and he props himself up on one elbow, leaning over her. He looks tired but happy, the bags under his eyes contrasting with the smile lines etched into his face, his hair sticking out at a dozen improbable angles. If she were to touch it, she knows it'd be stiff with sweat and lube, but her fingers ache to feel it anyway. "What was that?" he asks, doing a poor job of hiding his smirk. "Could you maybe say it again, because I'm not sure I heard--"

"You were right," she says. "This is weird."

"--oh." The smile lines vanish and he stares down at her for a few seconds before flopping back down on the bed. "Okay. Um, wow. Yeah, that... really wasn't what I was expecting you to say."

Pepper rolls to lean over the edge of the bed, trying to untangle one of the sheets from the mess of bedclothes they kicked to the floor. It's not cooperating, though; it's hopelessly knotted in on itself and tied to the comforter and they somehow managed to tear the dust ruffle, not that Tony's going to care. She grinds her teeth and yanks harder, a frustrated noise escaping the back of her throat, but that only makes it worse.

She hears a heavy sigh from Tony's side of the bed, and then he stands up. "And now it's weirder," he mutters. "I'm going to get more water. Want anything?"

She stops what she's doing. He's close, close enough that his feet are in her field of vision, and she can smell him, that metallic tang of machine oil and blood that he never gets off his skin, still noticeable through the sweaty stench of a few hours of sex. She looks up; his naked body still glistens with sweat, and the reactor moves gently up and down as he breathes.

"Let me guess," he says. " _No_." He leaves, and Pepper rolls to her back and throws an arm over her eyes with a groan.

Ten minutes pass, and then Pepper grabs his robe and goes after him. She's not particularly self-conscious, but she knows he's angry and she wants the armor. She finds him in the kitchen, hands braced hard against the counter, the corded muscles of his arms standing out in sharp relief as testament to how hard he's holding on. His head's hanging so low his chin's almost on his chest. He doesn't look up, but he knows she's there; the muscles in his back tense, bunching and rippling under his skin.

Pepper crosses the room and reaches out, fits her hand along his side, covering a fading bruise at the bottom of his ribcage. Her feet are cold against the marble tile of the kitchen.

"We can't tell anyone," she says, her voice quiet. She knows he's not going to like it.

Tony snorts, but doesn't say anything, and Pepper pulls her hand away and leans one hip against the counter beside him, not quite close enough to touch. "There are already questions about why I'm CEO," she starts. "If this gets out--"

"I thought you resigned."

"That doesn't matter, Tony. No one's going to believe we waited."

He finally turns his head and looks up. "You think I care what anyone believes?"

She straightens to her full height and stares him down. It takes a long time, but he eventually blinks and looks away. "I do," she says, her voice ice-cold. "And if you want this thing to work--"

"What thing?" He shoves off the counter and turns to face her. "What thing's going to work? There's no thing, apparently, there's sex, and we already know that works, so can we just-- just-- I don't know." He throws up his hands and turns around, starts pacing a figure-eight around the kitchen table and the island. "What do you want to do, Pepper? Just tell me what the hell you want to do."

"I don't know!" she snaps, and he stops walking, turning to face her with his arms crossed over his chest. There's only about six feet between them, but it might as well be six miles at this point. She takes a step closer anyway, and lowers her voice. "I really don't. But we can't sleep together if I'm working for you. It was a good night, Tony, but--"

"Okay, first, you resigned, and second, the CEO doesn't work for me, the CEO works for the board, of which you are also the chairman, so I really don't think it's an issue."

"Okay, first," she says, taking another step closer and mimicking his tone, "do you even remember what happened with Ob--" He rears back like she's slapped him, and she abruptly directs her sentence elsewhere. "The last time you got locked out, Tony, we made sure it can never happen again. So yes, the CEO does work for the board, but you still own a controlling share of the stock, you can replace everyone on the board with your robots. Including me."

"Dummy would be even worse at board membering than whatshisname, the narcoleptic with the Hawaiian shirts," he says, rolling his eyes and going back to pacing. This time it's just back and forth on the other side of the kitchen table from where Pepper's standing. "Anyway, you'd just dilute my shares."

"Except that we can't actually do that anymore. Tony--"

"Come on, you know how interested I am in fucking back-alley boardroom knife fights. I--"

" _Tony_. Stop talking and listen to me." She's at the table, now, and she plants both hands flat on its surface and leans over. He stops moving and looks at her, that startled in-the-principal's-office look on his face that drives her crazy. "Of course you don't think it's an issue. You don't think anything's an issue. You do whatever you want, and the rest of us clean it up."

He runs a hand through his hair, staring at his feet, shifting his weight awkwardly between them. "I thought..." But he trails off, apparently not sure what he thought.

Pepper tries to find some more words. "The rest of us have to worry about things, Tony. I'm not even CEO until the SEC signs off."

"I still don't see why they're involved," he mutters, his shoulders slumping.

"Because you did whatever you wanted, as usual, without talking to anyone about it. This is the cleanup. This is how it goes. You appointed your PA, a woman who technically has no prior experience, to succeed you as chairman and CEO of the 16th largest corporation in the world. You don't run the local five-and-dime, Tony. Of course the SEC's investigating."

"They'll be fine with it."

"Probably," she says. "But my point stands."

"Which is? I still don't know what we're really arguing about, so if you could just come out and say it, I'd"--he waves a hand in the air--"That'd be great."

"You have got to be kidding," she says. "It was the first thing I said when I came out here. _We can't tell anyone_. That's it, that's my point. No one can know."

"Fine," he grinds out. "Fine, whatever. So you'll sleep with me if we don't tell anyone, but if people find out, it's over. Is that what you're saying? Because that doesn't make any sense."

Pepper looks at the patch of table framed by her hands and counts to ten. "Tony, I don't know what's going to happen with the company, with the SEC, with the press, with the police, with the Senate, with the DOD. I don't know what's going to happen with us. I'm just asking for some time before you say anything."

He spends a few seconds with a mulish look on his face, but when he says, "Oh, so you admit there's an us?" she knows she's got her time. Knowing him, it's only a few hours, but she'll take it.

Pepper sits down and props her chin up on one hand. "I don't know," she says, letting her eyes linger on his naked body. She's seen him in the nude before, but there have always been extenuating circumstances, like walking in on him and Miss July, or finding him passed out after some disaster of a party, or trying to strip him out of the wreckage of the Iron Man suit. This is a little different. "Are you ever going to wear clothes again?" She's legitimately worried the answer is no.

His grin is lightning-fast and relieved. "Why?" He tilts his head. "Distracting?"

She raises one eyebrow and makes him wait, but, "It is, actually." She doesn't know where to look. "Bring me some water."

The grin hasn't left his face when he sets the glass down on the table, but before she manages to take a sip, her phone starts ringing from somewhere near the front door, from wherever she'd dropped her purse when they got in last night. "Here we go," she mutters. "Put on some pants. It's going to be a long day."

*

It's 5.45 in the morning when Jim knocks preemptively on the front door and then lets himself in. Pepper's just out of the shower, is still towel-drying her hair, and she doesn't bother blushing as Jim wanders through the house, picking up pieces of her clothing as he goes. He hands them over with a raised eyebrow. "Probably don't want these laying around when the troops show up."

"Not a word," she says, snatching them away, and he holds up his hands in silent surrender. "All right, I think we should set up shop in Howard's old office, which is--"

"Second floor," he says, already moving. "I know."

The troops in question start arriving at six. Brenda McAvoy is first, a 50-something woman who's been heading their PR department for seven years. Her dark hair is shot through with gray and already falling out of its bun, and she shoves her glasses up higher on her nose and says, "Everyone else will be here shortly." Pepper thinks of them as the Stark Army, the 20 or so most fiercely competent people she knows, who keep the place running come hell or high water or more typically, both. Almost all of them had been in California the night before, watching the news, and they'd taken the redeye across the country to help with damage control without being asked.

Brenda's as good as her word; ten minutes later, three lawyers show up, secretaries and a notary in tow, and then come Brenda's assistant and crack team of spin doctors, two people from financial, four interns, and after that Pepper loses track. One of the interns brings coffee, and when Jim opens the French doors of the office into the private study next door, it affords them enough space that everyone at least has some elbow room.

At seven, Tony sticks his head in, leaning sideways, one hand clutching at the doorframe to keep his body mostly upright. He surveys the controlled chaos and then looks at Pepper. "Hey, boss," he says. The room falls silent as everyone looks at him curiously from their various perches. He sways back and forth for a few seconds and then he shakes it off. "Uh, okay. Awkward. Is there anything you need me to do? You guys hungry? I could make omelets." He glances at the clock. "Could maybe be ready for lunch, that's like five hours away."

"I need you to go to your shop and stay there," Pepper says. Her tone's sharper than it needs to be, but the morning has been a steady realization that this week has been the worst clusterfuck in the history of the company (possibly in the history of any company ever, if Pepper lets herself get melodramatic about it), and her nerves are shot. "Don't come out until I personally come and get you. Don't talk to anyone, don't take any phone calls, don't--"

"All right, I get it," he says. "I get it." He shoves off the door and stands upright, but Brenda clears her throat before he gets the chance to disappear. Pepper looks over at her; she's in jeans and a Stark Industries sweatshirt, and has set up shop on the floor in front of an armchair, which she's using for a desk.

"He should make a statement," Brenda tells her. "I'm waiting for confirmation on the time of the press conference, probably 3:30. It'll go farther coming from him." She glances at Tony over the top of her glasses and then looks back at Pepper. " _If_ he agrees to just read a statement. No questions, no improv, no speeches, no dancers, just a statement, exactly as it's written. And he should show up at the dedication, but I don't know if he'll need to say anything. Won't be for at least a week anyway, maybe longer, so we'll see how things look."

Pepper nods as Tony asks, "The dedication?"

"We're shutting down the Expo," Pepper tells him. She waits a few seconds for him to protest, but he doesn't. Instead, he swallows hard enough that she can hear it across the room, but then he nods. Pepper continues, "And buying and then dedicating some of the land to the memory of those who were killed."

He closes his eyes. "How many?"

"Twenty-three so far," Brenda says in her just-the-facts voice. "Mostly from stray bullets and falling glass, but four didn't get far enough away from the exploding drones. Lost one in the parking garage collapse, which is extremely lucky, but there are another dozen in critical condition, twenty people reporting missing so far, and rescue efforts are ongoing."

"Worst-case scenario?" he asks.

"A hundred."

"Jesus," Tony mutters, his jaw clenched tight. He starts to shove his hands through his hair, but stops halfway. "Wait, we're buying the land? New York is really going to sell us their park land, just like that?"

"If we immediately appoint them the trustees and agree to fund it in perpetuity, yes."

"So they're bending us over a barrel, then."

"Tony."

"Right. What were we talking-- oh, the press conference. Yeah, sure. I'll read a statement, whatever you need me to do."

He seems sincere enough, but he usually is. Pepper sighs. "I'll think about it and let you know," she tells him, although she's pretty much made up her mind already. Brenda's right; he needs to be there. "The press conference won't be until this afternoon anyway. But in the meantime, working without Jarvis is slowing us down. Do you think you can--"

"Yeah," he says instantly, straightening. "I'll need--"

"Send Happy with a list. I'll find you later," she says, dismissal in her tone. She's not sure how he's going to react to that, not in front of 20 other people who aren't even pretending they're not paying attention, but all he does is nod like she's really in charge.

"Can't wait," he says, blows her a kiss, and disappears. Pepper's chest loosens considerably, and she goes back to work.

She talks to lawyers, contractors, suppliers, vendors, high-ranking city bureaucrats. She personally apologizes to Larry Ellison for the destruction of the Oracle Pavilion. She personally apologizes to the mayor of New York, and tells him yes, of course Tony will be at the joint press conference that afternoon to read a statement. They get a preliminary deal worked out for the bargain-basement price of $12.4 million for a piece of land big enough for a commerative plaque, and once that's done, she personally calls the families of the dead, and then the NYPD shows up to take a statement about Justin Hammer. There are senators to deal with, Defense Department officials, and Jim handles most of that, negotiating his way through the military-industrial labyrinth and briefing Pepper once every two hours. Sometimes he puts her on the phone and holds up an index card with a name on it and her mouth moves on autopilot.

Tony wanders in and out of the room occasionally, stripped down to jeans and a grease-stained white tank-top, running wires and installing speakers and cameras and microphones, and he would be unobtrusive except for the fact that every time Pepper catches a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye, she flashes back to the look on his face as he comes, to the feel of his fingers inside her, the texture of his goatee against her inner thigh.

"Okay," she says, slamming her laptop shut and rubbing at her eyes, which feel like they're full of ground glass. It's after one, they've been at this for seven hours already, and it's not like she'd gotten any sleep. "I need something to eat. I need 20 minutes of sleep. I need to get presentable for the press conference." She needs to relax; her shoulders are so tense they're practically up by her ears. "Brenda, could you please send a copy of Tony's statement to the printer in his shop? I'll walk him through it and then be back here in 90 minutes for a quick briefing, and then we can head out."

"Sure thing," Brenda says, and Pepper knows it's already done.

"Jim, page me if there's an emergency." He's on the phone, the handset cradled between his ear and his shoulder, and he nods distractedly and gives her a thumbs-up. Pepper doesn't run from the room, but it's tempting.

The shop here is different from the one in California. It smells different, for one thing, and it's smaller, not stuffed to the gills with might-be-bleeding-edge-in-20-years technology. Tony's different here, too, stripped to his essence and forced to function in his father's workshop without robot assistants or an AI, and when he hits his stride, it's as terrifying as it is beautiful. In California, there's always so much going on that it's easy to forget it's all _Tony_ , but here, she never can.

When she lets herself in, he's sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by circuit boards and wires, a laptop balanced precariously on one knee. There's a mat and a soldering gun to his left, and he has a mini-screwdriver in his mouth and a look of fierce concentration on his face that Pepper recognizes as his Do Not Disturb sign. She leans one shoulder against the wall and watches him, the fingers of his right hand flying over the keyboard as he stares at a circuit board he's holding in his left and gnaws on the screwdriver. The rush of affection that swells over Pepper is so strong that she almost acknowledges that it might be something more.

"You're staring," he says, not looking up. "Stop staring, it's distracting. I'll be done in a sec."

Pepper smiles and ignores him; he's perfectly capable of performing for an audience. He works for a few more seconds and then glances up, his eyes unfocused. "Hand me the wire cutters," he says around the screwdriver in his mouth. He lifts his chin toward one of the workbenches, and Pepper makes her way over. He trades her for the screwdriver, and she crouches down in front of him. "Pull," he says, holding up one end of a wire and stripping off its plastic coating while Pepper holds it steady.

That finished, he looks around and then points at one of the circuit boards out of his reach. Pepper grabs it, and they make another trade, the new one for the one he's got in his lap. He twists around and Pepper steadies the laptop on his knee while he leans to the side and solders his pieces together. Then he attaches some kind of connector to the other end of his wire, plugs it into the laptop, types for a while, and bangs the return key. He stares intently at the monitor, bouncing in place, muttering under his breath, his fingers drumming impatiently on the keyboard.

Whatever he's waiting for takes about thirty seconds, and then he throws back his head and laughs, that crazy mad-scientist cackle that curls Pepper's toes. When he finally focuses on her, his smile is huge and shining, crinkling the corners of his eyes, and Pepper leans over and kisses it off his face.

His mouth is warm and pliant against hers, his tongue licking lazily into her mouth and tasting faintly of coffee. He catches her face in his hands, his thumbs at her jaw and his fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of her neck. Pepper bites gently at his tongue and tries to push closer, but he tightens his grip and keeps her where she is.

"Whoa," he says, pulling away with a smirk. "Easy there, tiger." He reaches somewhere off to the side with one hand, running the other thumb over her lower lip. "This thing's hot," he says, holding up the soldering gun and then letting go of her to turn it off. "And as tempestuous as our love affair is, I'm not sure we're ready for branding." He wrinkles his nose, thoughtful. "Or maybe that's just me. You're not ready for branding, are you? Maybe a tattoo--"

Pepper stands up and crosses her arms. "Tony."

He looks up at her, that smirk still playing at the edges of his features. "Yes?"

"Shut up and fuck me."

There's surprise on his face for a split-second, and then he says, "Yes, ma'am," and he's on his knees, his hands sliding up under her skirt, rough fingers shoving her underwear out of the way. She's wet already, and his two middle fingers sink in easily, down to the knuckle, and Pepper gasps and fists her hands in his hair. He mouths at her clit through the fabric of her skirt and wraps an arm around her hips, scooting both of them toward the nearest workbench.

They're closer to it than Pepper thought; he mutters "incoming" in time for her to brace against the table with one hand. Tony manages to get her skirt up around her waist and his hand under her knee, holding her legs open as he nibbles his way up her thigh. "How much time do we have?" he asks, sucking at the tendon in the crease of her thigh.

Pepper shakes her head. "Not enough for this," she says, arching back against the table as he puts his mouth over her panties and shoves his tongue inside her, pulling the fabric tight over her clit. Pepper's hips jerk against him, her fist tightening in his hair, and he takes one more swipe with his tongue before pulling away.

"Okay, then," he says, pulling her underwear down to her knees and standing up. He kisses her quickly, open-mouthed and dirty, and then turns her around and pushes between her shoulder blades. She bends at the waist and grips the edges of the table, and he moves her hair out of the way and kisses the back of her neck. "Don't move," he says, and she squeezes her eyes shut as he runs his hands lightly over the swell of her ass and then leaves her there, crossing the room to rummage loudly through a drawer or something, presumably looking for a condom.

Pepper listens to him digging around for a few seconds, her cunt pulsing with need, and then says, "I thought you carried at least one condom on your person at all times."

"Not in the house," he says. "But I'll start immediately."

"Good plan," she says, and then he's back, fingering her roughly and using one jeans-clad thigh to spread her legs as far as they'll go -- which isn't that far, her underwear cutting into her thighs just above the knee. She hears him unzip and tear open the condom package, and then he's buried inside her, slamming in and filling her up with one quick thrust. The noise that tears its way out of her throat is somewhere between relief and pain; he's a tight fit with her legs where they are, and she's sore from last night.

Tony swears under his breath, his hips jerking against her, and then he's got one hand on the back of her neck, holding her down, and the other hand digging into her hip, fucking her so hard she'll have bruises where her hipbones are slamming into the table. The angle's good, though, the edge of the table indirectly hitting her clit, and she hangs on for dear life as her orgasm crashes over both of them.

Tony fucks her right through it without slowing down, and Pepper summons her strength and tightens her muscles around him. A few strokes later and she has the strength to shove back to meet him, and then she feels his hands clench, feels his thrusts get faster and more erratic, and he pulls her upright and hugs her to him, groaning and shuddering against her as he comes.

Pepper covers his hands with hers and they stand there like that, catching their breath, and then he shudders again and pulls away, planting another kiss at her hairline. He ties off and tosses the condom, zips up, and then kneels in front of her. Pepper sucks in her breath as he leans in and licks up one side of her labia and down the other before kissing her clit. He pulls her underwear up and straightens her skirt, and then sits back on his heels, looking up at her with his head cocked to one side.

"Hmm," he says, dark eyes shining. "I don't think you're going to fool anyone, Potts. You're looking pretty well-fucked."

"So are you," she says, sinking her fingers in his hair. "Your statement's on the printer. Read it while I shower, then you shower, we'll eat, we'll talk, we'll go. Okay?"

He bats his eyelashes. "Why don't we save some time, shower together?"

"Because," she says, leaning over and pressing a kiss to each eyelid. "That wouldn't save us any time."

"Promises, promises," he says, grinning, but his focus has already shifted. He pushes himself to his feet and grabs his statement off the printer before throwing himself on the couch to read. "Lemme know when it's my turn," he says, not looking up as Pepper heads for the shower.

*

The press conference goes as well as it can, under the circumstances. Tony's true to his word and reads his statement without embellishing or improvising, and his obvious lack of sleep is taken as a mark of sincerity: the exhaustion in his voice, the bags under his eyes, the blurred lines of his goatee. Security hustles him out of there immediately, long before Pepper is able to leave, and the rest of the day passes in a blur of phone calls and fallout. It's after midnight before she sees him again.

She's on the couch in the master suite, the TV on mute but tuned to the news, a laptop on her legs as she tries to deal with her email. Her assistant has been triaging more viciously than usual, but even on lockdown there's enough getting through that a day of other priorities means a message backlog in the hundreds. Pepper barely registers Tony's presence until he picks her feet up off the couch and scoots under them to sit down.

"Hey," he says, and when he digs his thumbs into the arch of her left foot, Pepper almost falls off the couch in sheer groaning ecstasy. She tries to say something but can't, so she closes the laptop and puts it on the floor before it falls off. "You did good today," he says, and Pepper squirms on the couch and gets comfortable as he wraps his hand around her heel and squeezes. She can tell he's amused by how much she's enjoying this, but it feels so good she can't bring herself to care. His hands are warm and rough and so, so strong, and as his thumbs massage the tension from the balls of her feet, she thinks she'd happily forego sleeping with him ever again if he just keeps doing this.

"And hey, you didn't resign," he says, eventually, squeezing each of her toes in turn.

Pepper can't think of a topic she's less interested in discussing, but when she pries her eyes open, Tony is staring at her feet, wholly focused on the massage he's giving her. "I didn't get the chance," she says. "It was a pretty busy day."

He nods without looking at her and asks, "What about tomorrow? Sunday's usually a pretty slow day at the office, slow news day, might be good for it."

"Slow days at your office don't actually exist, Tony."

"Oh, I've got your number, Potts, you love it," he says, and the hell of it is, he's right. She likes extracting order from chaos, she likes turning ideas into reality, she likes making a difference, and although she'd never admit as much to Tony, she hates being bored as much as he does. When she's next to him, she never is.

But she says, "I wouldn't know. I've only had this job a week. You want me to resign?" As soon as she says it, she knows she won't. He could make her, which is a problem, but she won't willingly give it up, not now, not after she's worked so hard and so long and finally has a chance to run the company for real instead of from behind a Tony-shaped façade.

"Of course not. You resigning is maybe my worst nightmare." He pauses, slides his thumb down the top of her foot, digging in at the base of her toes. "Okay, maybe like my third-worst nightmare. Or fourth, that's as low as I'm going. You resigning is my fourth-worst--"

"Tony," she says, and he mercifully stops talking and then switches to her other foot. "What if you had to choose? I run your company or warm your bed. Which one would you pick?"

"'Warm my bed'? What is this, the dark ages? They make heated mattresses for that shit now, we can get one if you want. Your side, my side, totally custom." He pauses. "Which is actually probably a good idea. And hey, what side do you want, anyway, I'm not used to..." He trails off, and Pepper waits, one eyebrow raised. "Sharing. I'm not used to sharing, and you're about to ask me again, aren't you."

She goes ahead and does it. "Which one would you pick?"

His face pulls into a deep frown as he drags the hard heel of his hand down her achilles tendon and back up, and Pepper can't help but moan softly as his fingers work the bottom of her calf muscle. "I wouldn't," he says finally. "It's a bullshit choice, I'd figure something else out. I want both."

"And you always get what you want."

"Pretty much," he says, and when he turns to look at her, it's with a guarded expression on his face she rarely sees. "What's so bad about what I want?"

"What if you'd picked sex?" she asks, pulling her feet away from him and sitting up. "What if you'd picked sex and told me to resign? What do you think I'd do?"

"Um. Yell, probably? Maybe add a nice juicy side order of evisceration? I mean, I don't know for sure, but there would definitely be blood. My blood. All over, like one of those serial killer movies."

"Yeah, and after that, I probably would have quit. Maybe not tomorrow, but you could force me out."

"I swear to god I'm having déjà vu or something." He waves his hands around in the air by his head. "It's like we had this conversation not even 24 hours ago. Why would I--"

"What if it goes wrong?" She asks, and his mouth closes so suddenly she can hear the click of his jaw. "The relationship, this thing with us. You've had some nasty breakups in your life, Tony, I've cleaned up after a lot of them, I know how they end."

His eyebrows go up and he sits back, looking stung. "You think-- wow. Wow, okay."

She gentles her voice. "I've made the calls myself, Tony. I've sicced the dogs on your exes." It hadn't been punitive, but it hadn't been rare.

He's quiet for a long time, and then says, "This is different. I mean, we did okay today, didn't we? You did your thing, I did my thing, we met in the middle for a quickie, checked fantasy fifty-seven off the bucket list."

She knows she shouldn't ask, she'll take any diversion she can get right now. "Fantasy fifty-seven?"

He grins, a quick flash of teeth. "From behind over a workbench in Dad's shop. Check."

"Do you actually-- no, never mind, I do not want to know."

"Look, I just think if I can figure out world peace and you can figure out Fortune 50 fuckery, not to mention, you know, me, I don't see why the two of us can't figure this out."

Pepper pushes herself off the couch and looks down at him, exhausted and jittery and maybe a little nauseated. "Are you still dying?"

When he closes his eyes and slumps against the couch, Pepper turns and goes to bed. She's asleep the second her head meets the pillow.

Tony's still on the couch, sleeping, when Pepper wakes up too few hours later, and she stands over him and stares at his slack face bathed in the soft blue glow of his reactor. In sleep, he's vulnerable and strangely beautiful, even with his face smushed to one side and drool in the corner of his mouth and his hair an utter disaster, he's boyish even with three days of stubble on his face. She swallows the lump in her throat and crouches down, reaching out to push a lock of hair off his forehead, and in that moment she knows she'll never be strong enough to walk away. She wishes she could leave as much as she wishes she didn't want to, aches for it in a way that leaves her hollow and yearning to be more like Tony, who just takes what he wants without even acknowledging the possibility of torpedoes.

He catches her hand in both of his without opening his eyes, presses his warm lips to the palm of her hand, the heel of it, the tender skin of her wrist. Pepper tugs his sweatpants down and finds him already hard, and she sinks down on top of him so slowly it breaks her apart.

*

When she gets out of the shower, Tony's sprawled face-down on the bed, sleeping with a sheet twisted low around his hips and one arm hanging off the side of the bed. Pepper watches him for a few seconds but doesn't wake him before she goes downstairs to meet Happy. He takes her to the hotel in Lower Manhattan where the company has rented out a block of suites and has two war rooms up and running, both already buzzing with activity. The rest of her senior staff trickles in throughout the day, their own staffs in tow, and Pepper makes a note to have someone look into actual office space in Manhattan.

It's Sunday but it's more of the same, an endless parade of media inquiries and trying to keep up-to-date on the health of those injured at the Expo; of the police and then the FBI asking her about Justin Hammer; SHIELD and the military and a team of lawyers arguing over proprietary technology and property rights. Pepper does manage to make it back to the brownstone before midnight, but only just, and Tony's nowhere to be found.

She checks the shop in a very controlled panic to make sure the suit is still there -- it is; he's been making repairs -- and then she spends ten minutes talking herself out of calling him, because she can't do this every time. He has to tell her the things that matter, and she has to trust him to know the difference, but she stares at the Mark VI and thinks of him nearly killing everyone at his birthday party, she stares at it and hears him say _I am no longer dying_ , and she doesn't.

*

Monday is talking down investors and reassuring their larger clients and trying to get them to talk to people who aren't her about the status of their contracts; it's board members wanting to discuss financial projections that the accountants are still working on; it's the SEC deciding now is a perfect time to investigate her credentials and her ability to handle the new position. It's another day she doesn't see Tony, but she's too exhausted to think much about it. Whatever he's doing, he's not causing any trouble, and Pepper takes it at face-value and tries to be grateful for small mercies. He's curled around her when she wakes up, and it's nice, and it's dangerously tempting, but she extracts herself without waking him and goes to work the next day.

Tuesday is the long tail, the bits and pieces and edge cases leftover; it's a phalanx of New York property lawyers arguing in breathtaking detail about the trust; it's the tide of the PR battle starting to turn, to hint that maybe Tony and Jim deserve medals for stopping a madman; it's a few key senators agreeing not to push for more hearings; it's the death toll from the Expo ticking up a little higher; it's a few more heartbreaking phone calls to families; and it's Tony, walking into the suite she's using as an office at 6pm and dropping a ream of paper on her desk with a loud thwack. He throws himself sideways into the chair opposite her, his feet dangling over the armrest, kicking, kicking.

Pepper eyes him over her desk and doesn't look at the papers. She's asked him not to come to the office, at least not without a great deal of warning, and maybe they're not in California at the moment, but it still counts. There are a thousand reasons he needs to stay away, and most of them are just as applicable here as they are there. But he's managed to catch her in the 30 seconds she's had to herself all day, and before she can say anything he swipes the TV remote from the sideboard and absently starts taking it apart, his mouth moving on autopilot as he tells her about his shower that morning, which apparently involved putting some serious thought into aerodynamic heating at supersonic speeds so maybe they should call the scramjet guy, he seemed pretty irritated at their last meeting. And then it's the grid computing infrastructure at CERN, and then something else Pepper doesn't follow, and another thing after that. She doesn't try. She simply aches. She misses him. His chatter is as soothing as it is distracting, and she looks at him and remembers the way her thumbs fit perfectly against the ridges of his collarbone, the muffled noise of faux-surprise he makes when he's talking and she kisses him mid-sentence, the feel of the hair at the nape of his neck against her cheek, the way his hands always smell like engine grease and lava soap. She stares at his lips and his hair and his hands and his ass, and she wonders if he finished the repairs on the suit and if he'd gone out again, if there are any new scrapes and bruises under his clothes this time. Either way, he's never pristine, never quite whole, and when he shows up in front of her, with old bruises on his knuckles and a scrape on his cheekbone, it takes more of Pepper's willpower than she'd like to admit not to lay her hands on his injuries and press and press and press until his mouth falls open and his eyes go dark and his pain morphs into pleasure.

It's unprofessional, how much she wants him. It's unprofessional and terrifying, and they haven't even been sleeping together for a week and she's so far gone she can't think straight, and Pepper finally clenches her fists and digs her fingernails into the palms of her hands and pulls it together enough to say, "Tony, you can't just come in here like this--"

"I made an appointment," he says.

"I-- you did?"

He nods.

"Oh." She supposes that explains why no one has interrupted. "To tell me about grid computing?"

"Nah," he says, but he doesn't offer up an alternative explanation. He's focused on the pieces of the TV remote, and Pepper stands and moves to the other side of the desk to take it away. He doesn't protest, just swivels in the chair and tugs at her hips until she's perched on his lap. She wraps an arm around him and he rests his head against her shoulder and mumbles, "I'm sorry."

"What?" She grabs his hair and tugs until he looks up at her. "Can you say that again?"

"I... actually don't think so," he says. "That was -- I said I'd give you a formal apology for not telling you I was dying. That was it, keep up. I was going to bring flowers, but I brought paperwork instead." He jerks his chin in the direction of the papers he'd dropped on her desk.

"Very romantic," she says primly.

"You haven't seen it yet." His eyes crinkle at the corners and take on a very particular shine that Pepper has come to associate with lawyers. She sighs and turns to her desk, but Tony grabs her hand, presses his lips to her knuckles. "Hang on a sec," he says. "I'm not done here, just slow. You know this isn't really my-- I mean, I haven't-- I--"

"If this is another apology where you just repeat the word 'I' over and over again--"

"No, but hey, if I promise to finish some sentences, can I still say 'I'? Otherwise I'll end up talking about myself in the third-person, and that's just weird. Tony wishes to inform you that he's kind of a fuckup, but--"

"Okay, okay, you can have one use of the word 'I' per sentence." She holds up a finger, and Tony grins and kisses it.

"Thanks, Potts, _I_ appreciate it." But he still doesn't start talking, he just settles a hand on her leg and starts rubbing circles into the hollow of her hipbone.

"So you're kind of a fuckup..." she says, hoping to get him back on target but admittedly distracted by his body against hers. It's difficult to be objective when she's sitting on his lap like this, although if she's being honest, her Tony-related objectivity went out the window more than a decade ago.

"Yeah, you should probably call a press conference, let people know. It's news."

"I'll get right on that."

His smile is there and gone, and he heaves a sigh so huge her own chest empties, and the words spill out of him like breath. "I know you're freaked out, okay? I'm well aware of my reputation and history with women, it's been recklessly cultivated over many years of debauchery and indulgence, but this thing with us is different, you know it's different, and that scares the shit out of you. And me too, if I'm being honest, which is kind of the point of this. So yeah, I get it. But we're good together, we always have been. Even you don't try to deny that part, and I think we should give it a shot. Like, a real one. I want to try. I think it could work. And I'm willing to... what's the word, compromise? On some stuff. If you want."

"Do you know what that word means?"

"Compromise? Yeah, I looked it up like ten minutes ago."

His smile is hesitant, almost shy, and Pepper's steadily rising pulse kicks up another few beats per minute. She swallows and says, "I can't believe you managed to get through that whole thing with only one 'I' per sentence."

"Please tell me you're impressed enough to lift the restriction."

"I don't know. It was good while it lasted."

"Was it good enough that you'll stop avoiding what I actually said?" His smile is gone, and Pepper has to look away.

Tony brushes his lips across the underside of her jaw. "Try with me, Pepper," he whispers into her skin, his goatee a soft tickle at her throat. "Please."

Pepper wants to say something, but there's a lump in her throat she can't swallow or talk around.

"Oh," he says, sighing again when she says silent. Pepper can't tell if he's taking pity on her and giving her more time, or he's just being Tony, moving on to his next thought and assuming she'll catch up later. "Before you ask, yes, if I start dying again, you will absolutely be the second person to know. Pinkie swear." He holds up his pinkie, an absurdly hopeful look on his face, and Pepper still can't speak but at least she manages to move. She hooks her own pinkie around his.

"Is that a yes?"

Pepper stares into his face for far longer than she should, lifts her hand to trace the strong line of his jaw, the laugh lines by his mouth, the soft skin of his eyelids. "Show me this romantic paperwork you brought me," she says, her voice scratchy, and Tony stands up so fast he almost topples her off his lap.

"Jesus, Tony," she says, flipping through the papers and then slowing down to read more carefully. "Is this--"

"Yeah," he says, shoving his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. "The thing where you think if we break up I'll try to get rid of you, it's bullshit, even I'm not that stupid, but. Now I couldn't even if I wanted to." Now, if he tried removing her, the board would be able to dilute his stock enough to take away his controlling interest in the company.

Pepper sits down, stunned. He's basically just handed her the keys to the castle.

"So that's it, right?" He asks, and then he ticks it off on his fingers. "That's the legal shit so I can't oust you in the middle of some spat. I apologized for the thing with the death, we pinkie-swore that I'd talk to you more and tell you when I'm dying. That's all the bullshit out of the way, now all that's left is fear." He bites his bottom lip and raises his eyebrows. "And that's bullshit too, come on, say yes. Super easy, one word."

Pepper puts the papers down. She closes her eyes, pinches the bridge of her nose. She tries to focus on her breathing but mostly just feels the ghost of his breath on her skin. She considers saying _no_ and is quickly overwhelmed by the thought of life without him, the infinite boring sameness of it all; by the look of hurt she'd see in his eyes; by the memory of how she'd felt every day he was in that cave and every day since he'd come back. She opens her eyes, sees him still watching her, hopeful, careful.

"Yes."

 

**-FIN.-**

**Author's Note:**

> On [tumblr](http://atratum.tumblr.com/post/120792079399/fic-the-long-tail-tony-pepper-10k).


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